Messages - Mechworker

When I started my model site, The Sprue Lagoon, I didn’t really know what it was going to be like, or how long I’d stay at it. As a result of the site, though, I’ve managed to make all kinds of new connections, and it’s really become an important part of how I model. I take great pride in finding and reviewing both interesting, and completely oddball, subjects. One thing I’ve found since I started it back in 2012 is that I now often think “Would that be a fun kit to review?” before I even think of “Would that be a fun kit to build?” I have changed the way I think to try and take what everybody out there in “internet land” might like to see or find interesting.

As it turns out, this has led me down a number of interesting roads, and continues to do so. Seven years after starting the website, I have reached a milestone I didn’t even think was possible – 250,000 hits. That’s big for a site just made by one dude and his model stash, I think. I wanted to have a bit of a celebration for it; do something special, something a bit bigger than usual.

Well, thankfully, I found just the thing! A couple of years ago, I managed to get my hands on what is still the biggest car kit in my inventory, a 1/16 Street Van called “Movin’ Out”. It is a wild, wild “big rig show van” in the most overdone tradition of both the late ‘70s Vannin’ craze, AND the late ‘70s taste for humungous pieces of styrene!

I thought that it would be a fitting thing to present at this milestone occasion; a big review of a big kit on a big day. Check it out at the link below.

Thanks, to everybody, who’s helped make my site successful, and has made my modelling far more fun and interesting than I’d have ever thought possible. Just like this van, you all rock!

Sometimes you get it… sometimes you don’t. We’ve all had off days, but it’s one thing to mess up on a model, and another to mess up creating the actual subject in real life! Well, despite their success with the Schneider Trophy races and the immortality of the Spitfire, it seems that, after WWII, the good folks at Supermarine just kind of threw in the towel. They went from creating some of the world’s fastest aircraft to creating one of the slower, more lacklustre and undeniably more porcine jets.

Early jets, of course, weren’t all successes, but the straight-winged, tail dragging, chubby-boddied Attacker is one of the most prevalent losers of the immediate post-war jet cohort. Of course, because it’s such a substandard loser, I love it! It’s not just loser cars that get me going, total failures of aeronautics also make me smile! That’s why I was glad to get my hands on the Trumpeter Attacker! At the time, there was no good 1/72, so I was even willing to go up a scale and out of my normal comfort zone to build one!

Check out the 1/48 Trumpeter Attacker at the link below, and let me know what you think!

When it comes to the Automotive Dark Ages, there are a few certainties you can almost always rely on. One of those is that it was a bad time to be a storied nameplate, because the chances of you surviving with your name intact was pretty much nil. That’s why I love that era, from about 1973 to about 1987 so much; the cars in it were so lacklustre and neutered that people can’t help but want to forget them.

One good example is the Nova. While most people will choose to remember the late ‘60s and early ‘70s muscle-era pocket rockets, the truth is the Nova died a long and slow death, wasting away until replaced by the exciting, modern and much-ballyhooed Citation! (Nevermind it’s resurrection as a badge engineered Corolla…) For me, the thrill isn’t the early Novas that everyone remembers. Nope, it’s the cruddy, wheezy late models, the shadows of their former selves, that turns my crank.

For that reason, I was very excited to finally be able to get my hands on a copy of Round 2’s version of the MPC 1979 Nova – Squad Rod! As if the last Nova wasn’t sad enough, the MPC attempt to create a Police Hot Rod is just, well… disquieting. Check out this loserly last stand at the link below!

Despite building them very rarely, I really do like space ships. On one hand, they really let you use your imagination, since they’re not real. On the other, most ships of which there are kits are so famous that to paint them in other than their “accepted” schemes can often be considered akin to heresey! I’ve always wanted to build my “own” ship, with its own back story. However, I’m not up for that kind of scratchbuilding, so that left me high and dry.

That was until I came across the Wave kit of the Solvalou, a non-scale kit of the main fighter from the video game Xevious. Since I’m no gamer, and never was, I had no connection to the ship, nor did I have any preconceived notions about how it should look, scale or anything else. So, I finally had a chance to get imaginative!I had great fun paying tribute to my two favourite books, the Usborne Book of the Future and the original TTA Book (Spacecraft 2000-2100AD) with this little model, which turned out to be a great kit!

Check out my personal addition to the TTA universe at the link below, and let me know what you think!

When most people think of a collection of vehicles from the mid 1950’s, they think of T-Birds, or Tri-Chevies or at least something with fins. Barring that, at least most people think of something with four wheels! However, I am not most people. For me, while they’re visually interesting and neat in real life, cars of the Fifties have never really “done it” for me as modelling subjects.

No, I like the weirder stuff, so when I got a collection of vehicles from the mid-‘50s, it was a bunch of Japanese three-wheeled commercial vehicles! Thanks to LS (and Arii thereafter), my lust for oddball automotive subjects can be at least somewhat appeased! Check out my collection of 5 three-wheelers from the fun and simple 1/32 “Owner’s Club” model series. You’ll never see a Big Wheel the same way again!

While I tend to focus on mecha, cars and planes, I do have other interests as well. One of those is submarines. I generally find modern subs to be a little bit boring, but WWII subs generally grab my attention. Of course, the weirder it is the more I like it, and the German midget subs of WWII must be some of the weirdest, and least effective, of their type!

Needless to say, this means I do have a real thing for German midget subs, and I’m always surprised to find out just how many kits of these things there are! Last year I picked up a couple more, and the smaller (kit) of the two is the one I thought I’d share first! Check out one of Germany’s better entries into this category, the 1/72 Seehund. It’s an ICM, but this copy is brought to you by Revell Germany. Either way, it’s a neat kit of a little-known craft!

It comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I like the oddball subjects. Loser cars and automotive failures are one thing, but I’m also a big fan of Street Vans and custom trucks too. Normally, I prefer to get my custom juices flowing by building a model of something, but once in a while I come across a die cast vehicle that’s just what the Doctor ordered!

A perfect example of this is the Zylmex “Datsun Sunshine” custom mini-truck. Chock full of the Hong Kong version of late ‘70s custom trickery, this little customized Datsun 620 is a cool little piece that looks great on display. At 1/43, it also doesn’t take up much room!

Check out this recent toy show find at the link below. It’s an early present to everybody, because everybody likes Sunshine on Christmas!

If there’s one word in my car modelling vocabulary that is worth a thousand images, it’s “Van”. When I was growing up, it was the waning days of the Vannin’ craze, and I can remember all kinds of totally awesome, mega-tricked out vans at car shows we’d go to in the spring and summer. Most of us remember those mural-bedecked rolling pleasure palaces as perhaps the most expressive automotive customs ever, even if they weren’t your thing. However, one thing I don’t ever remember seeing was a stock custom van. If you’re asking “What?” then you’re like me when I first heard of the Ford and Dodge factory-made, custom-ready street vans.

As it turns out, AMT even gave us a kit of the 1977 Ford Cruising Van, complete with very loud factory striping! It’s been a long time since it was available, and despite bringing out the custom Econoline “Phantom” van a few years ago, Round 2 has seen fit to resurrect this long-gone piece of model kit history. The new version features some improvements too, like better tires and two kinds of striping!

I love vans, and I love wacky production cars. This is both! It doesn’t get much better than this, despite this things flaws. Check it out at the link below, but if it’s rockin’, don’t come a knockin’!

Being a fan of science fiction generally means liking spaceships. I grew up with all kinds of cool spaceships to hold m interest, including, of course, those in Star Wars, Transformers and the various anime series (Macross, Southern Cross and Mospeada) that make up Robotech. By the same token, while there were always cool space ship toys to get, as I got older I was a bit disappointed by the small number of mainline space ship model kits that were available.

When I got into anime, I thought that would be rectified, but even then, kits of spacecraft weren’t easy to come by in North America, at least. Still, they say that good things come to those who wait, and after waiting for about 22 years to get a kit of my favourite Gundam spacecraft, the Albion from 0083, I finally managed to grab one of the reissued EX-Models. Check out this interesting low-volume kit from Bandai’s specialized EX line at the link below. Be warned – it’s not like other Gundam kits!

When it comes to crazy, desperate ideas executed with inappropriate haste, advanced-yet-available technology and a good side helping of Teutonic efficiency, there’s little doubt that the WWII Luftwaffe has to be champion. Be it rocket planes that were more dangerous to their crews than the enemy or stealthy flying wing fighters, the RLM and German industry were up to a lot of different things as WWII came to a close.

One of the more frightening ones that saw testing and actual deployment was the Bachem Natter. This was a VTO point defence fighter, more akin to a “Manned Missile” than any other aircraft that made it to service, except the Japanese Ohka. Of course, in great German fashion, there were all kinds of tests and prototypes! One such machine was the first (and only) manned article, Natter M23. The good folks at Brengun have actually made a kit of this little (and deadly) oddity. Check it out at the link below!

¬¬¬Well, after a lot more work than I thought it would be, the Pinto Crusing Wagon is now done! Just like the real car, this one was lot of headaches interspersed with some chagrins. Thing is, it’s an old MPC, and I was expecting some trouble. Not as much as I got, but I sure didn’t expect a “Clean Getaway”, so to speak!

I’m really very glad to have a stock representation of one of what might be the lamer attempts to add performance through striping. I am now excited to get my hands on the ’77 Cruising Van that Round 2 just put out, so I can have two examples of Ford’s attempts to conjure up tapestripe horsepower!

Check out this little beast at the link below, and be warned: you’re likely not going to see this kit built often simply because there’s so much wrong with it. However, in the end, it is all worth it, because it’s a Pinto Cruising Wagon, and how much lamer does it get than that?

A lot of people say that things are “like riding a bicycle”, meaning that once you get the hang of it you can’t really forget how to do it. However, if you think about it, riding a bike is hard. There are a lot of specialized skills involved, and it requires training, persistence and special equipment to get the hang of it.

Flying is very similar, and basic flying training is, and always will be, an important part of any pilot’s journey to the skies. Of course, compared to flashy fighters and bombers, the trainers aren’t as “imagination grabbing”, and so they often get left out in the cold. Thankfully, Matchbox had the sense to help rectify this when they issued their kit of the Percival Provost T.1, the RAF’s standard trainer for quite some post-war time.

This isn’t a kit that I’ve seen very often, and to my knowledge it’s not one that Revell has ever repopped, or at least not for a while. Check out this little forgotten bird at the link below, and bring your sunglasses!

Well, the results are in and the people have spoken! Of the kits I managed to snag in London (Ontario, Canada) during the model show at the end of September, one has been quite overwhelmingly chosen as the “king of the losers”! The winner of this dubious title was the AMT BRAT, that awesome little bundle of tax-evading passenger un-safety!

The margin of victory was considerable, with 71 votes, the Brat managed 17. Sure, that’s only 24%, but in Canadian politics at least, that’s more than enough to win! Given that the BRAT is also one of my top purchases (since I stupidly passed one up years ago) I was more than willing to dive right in and get you guys an Out of Box report on this fairly rare little beast. So check it out below!

I’m sure everyone’s heard of an embarrassment of riches, right? Well, what happens when the riches you have are embarrassing, and they’re so plentiful that you get paralyzed by choice?

Well, for one thing, you get what happened to me! At my local show just recently, I hit the vendors hard, and got so many amazing kits that I am a bit stuck for which one to open up and review first! When you’re weighing things like a Firebird station wagon, a four-door Corvette, a BRAT and a Messerschmitt cycle car, it’s not easy to come to a quick decision.

So, I’m doing what anyone would do, when staring down the Magnum PI Vanagon and a Suzuki Samurai… I’m asking for help!

Check out my awesome score of total automotive oddballs, and give me a hand with a vote for what you want to see as the next out of box car on the Lagoon! Just follow the link below, but be ready… awesomeness awaits!

Since it’s the end of Summer as I write this, and the days are getting shorter, I thought it would be appropriate to put up a display of my “Sunset Stripe” cars. Unsurprisingly, most of them are MPCs, since that was right up their alley!

Check out this collection at the link below, and get your time machines ready!